Comparison of skeletal muscle decellularization protocols and recellularization with adipose-derived stem cells for tissue engineering

Decellularization is a novel technique employed for scaffold manufacturing, as a strategy for skeletal muscle (SM) tissue engineering applications. However, poor decellularization efficacy is still a problem for the use of decellularized scaffolds as truly biocompatible biomaterials. For recellularization, adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) are a good option, due to their immunomodulatory and pro-regenerative capacity, but few studies have described their combination with muscle-decellularized matrices (mDMs). This work aimed to evaluate the efficiency of four multi-step decellularization protocols to produce mDMs and to investigate in vitro biocompatibility with ASCs. Here, we described the different efficacies of muscle decellularization methods, suggesting the need for stricter standardization of the method, considering the large range of applications in SM tissue engineering, which is also a promising platform for preclinical studies with rat disease models using autologous cells.